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Post by chicagowiz on May 2, 2023 21:00:18 GMT -6
Recaps from my most recent Dungeon23 OD&D games. Alex Schroeder had suggested making recaps in 500 characters to fit in a Mastodon post. I liked the idea so much, I've taken to doing it for all my games. Started doing it in April.
4/4: PCs figured out strange light-eating, blue-glowing-areas room was a weird dungeon centrifuge. Nobody died.
PCs returned to known rooms to retry doors that won't open. Heard babbling voices. Worked their way around the map through new rooms to get to the voices.
They found a room with boarded up door. Delayed a bit, but curiosity got them to return and pry it open.
They are now next to the room with voices, speaking in Elven!
4/18: PCs tracked down the voices and found two Elves - one quite insane! His friend Abasire was killed in the Maw.
More exploring, they came to a room with corroded ewers on stone pillars. They fought off an ambush by a large spider. They avoided a corridor with a strange black surface.
They've reached a storeroom of crude weapons, foul food and the smell of burning meat; rats are nearby.
Mad elf said to PCs: "Abasire says you're all going to die down here!"
5/2: PCs opened the door where squeaking came from. Four giant rats were dispatched w/fire, but orcs came to investigate.
They were defeated, but an elf hireling was killed and an alarm had been given! The party quickly looted crates, finding treasure!
The PCs exited and spiked the door just in time to stop more orcs! They solved a riddle by assisting 2 dying foes; reward was all PCs healed! Lost, they stumbled into a teleporter and found themselves in a known place!
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rayotus
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 122
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Post by rayotus on May 3, 2023 8:41:14 GMT -6
I'm back on track. I find myself working in spurts but I have a rhythm now that works - combining map drawing and then writing a couple sentences about each room in an Obsidian vault as a placeholder for future details. IOW, I've stopped trying to make it "of publishable quality" on a daily basis. Also I'm just allowing myself to work in spurts. I might miss a day and then do three days for example.
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Post by chicagowiz on May 3, 2023 11:57:41 GMT -6
I'm back on track. I find myself working in spurts but I have a rhythm now that works - combining map drawing and then writing a couple sentences about each room in an Obsidian vault as a placeholder for future details. IOW, I've stopped trying to make it "of publishable quality" on a daily basis. Also I'm just allowing myself to work in spurts. I might miss a day and then do three days for example. If the Black Maw ever gets published, it will probably be someone who got ahold of my stuff after I've shuffled off this mortal coil. This is all purely for me and my enjoyment, and for the people who want to dive into an old-school megadungeon.
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Post by chicagowiz on May 22, 2023 6:32:24 GMT -6
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Post by doublejig2 on May 22, 2023 14:18:37 GMT -6
Awesome!
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rayotus
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 122
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Post by rayotus on May 22, 2023 14:58:18 GMT -6
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Post by chicagowiz on May 29, 2023 7:04:40 GMT -6
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Post by chicagowiz on May 31, 2023 7:03:27 GMT -6
5/16 OD&D/Dungeon23 session: The party camped at the mouth of the Black Maw, only to have their sleep interrupted by a procession of hundreds of ghosts streaming out of the dungeon! Most the party ran away, the crazy elf NPC & a brave character stayed behind.
The PCs went to town & learned a bit more of the nature of life around the Maw - cyclical "gold rushes" when Maw delvers get lucky and rich for awhile.
The crazy elf, now a "human noble" will lead them on the next foray into the Maw! What can go wrong?
5/30 OD&D/Dungeon 23 session: The PCs re-enter the Maw to explore the area where Glyn/Abasire (Crazy Elf NPC) claims to have been.
They found faint purple footprints at a door. Upon opening, they faced a wounded creature w/ tentacles that paralyzed Edwin! They killed it, Edwin recovered.
Unfortunately, Glyn snapped, at the next room, he charged rats eating at a body! He fell to them, the PCs burned the rats and recovered possible magical armor. Now they face a fleshy mass suspended by vessels as thick as arms.
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rayotus
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 122
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Post by rayotus on May 31, 2023 8:03:15 GMT -6
I'm with you chicagowiz. I've mapped out 6 levels and frankly I'm more interested in developing them further than in making another 6 levels. Very few "mega dungeons" ever get fully played, so why not put the effort where it will see the most play? I mean, my last level had a dragon and a gate to hell and two hive cities of tyrannical lava worm bio-engineers. Not sure how much I'm interested in trying to get more epic than that. I guess next for me would be to map out rings of a hell city or something that you can get to through the hell gate.
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rayotus
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 122
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Post by rayotus on May 31, 2023 8:05:19 GMT -6
Hmmm. Now I want to do a hell of frozen fire. Fire that is so condensed, compressed it's locked into kind of a crystal matrix but when it passes through the hell gate it releases its energy and becomes fire/liquid fire. If too much gets through at once ... atomic bomb stuff. Petty devil lords and all that shirt.
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Post by chicagowiz on Nov 10, 2023 8:06:46 GMT -6
I know it's been awhile, but I've still been doing Dungeon23 and I'm up to my last/12th level of my megadungeon! A theme and purpose developed in the dungeon as I built it, just as I'd hoped. I think the thing is really coming alive through play, as the OD&D campaign I'm running in it is still going! This has been quite the experience and one that I think taught me the power of "steady/habitual" again. Move a pebble at a time and I can move the mountain.
Picture shows the pages for my last map, ready to be drawn. I ordered stencils to help me draw the last level, which should be here by Monday.
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rayotus
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 122
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Post by rayotus on Nov 10, 2023 12:21:10 GMT -6
I'm really sorry I quit. I mean, I'm not sorry because I really didn't have the time and needed to turn my creativity to other projects. At the same time, I have gotten a lot of use out of my Dungeon 23 exercise at the table. It taught me the value of having a kind of personal, non-specific (though still thematic) dungeon lying around for one-the-spot play. No big or pre-set "story" to fulfill. Just lots of goofy, interactive things (traps, puzzles, treasures, items, npcs, monsters) to discover.
Had I continued on, I'm not sure I would have gone much deeper. After about level 6 or 7 you get diminishing returns on how likely the thing is ever to see the light of play, even if you start with high-level characters. So I think my last months would have been to do a surrounding area and a couple of entrances or sub levels that interface with levels 1-4.
Did you "dig straight down"? Did you do multiple dungeons?
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Post by chicagowiz on Nov 10, 2023 18:36:07 GMT -6
Did you "dig straight down"? Did you do multiple dungeons? A little bit of both! The main levels are "straight down", although Level 12 might be a bit of a surprise. There are, however, some sublevels that might... be considered "elsewhere"-ish. I've really enjoyed the experience, and even if the campaign never makes it to the end, knowing the whole dungeon influences how I run it even at the upper levels. The players are beginning to get some inklings that the Black Maw is ... not normal.
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Post by chicagowiz on Dec 18, 2023 8:38:11 GMT -6
A year later, I've completed my Dungeon23. I wrote up a quick blog post summarizing my thoughts - chgowiz.substack.com/p/finishing-dungeon23-i-did-itSome stats: * Levels: 12 (+ 5 sublevels) * Rooms: 682 rooms * Town: Created, 7 locations/NPCs keyed. * Surrounding Wilderness: Created, locations/NPCs keyed The OD&D campaign that I started to explore it while I was building it is still going strong! (and always open to the august company of folks here!)
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Dungeon23
Dec 24, 2023 17:54:02 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by rredmond on Dec 24, 2023 17:54:02 GMT -6
Where did you end up playing? PbP? Discord? Looking through this, looks good!
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Post by chicagowiz on Dec 25, 2023 9:56:21 GMT -6
Where did you end up playing? PbP? Discord? Looking through this, looks good! Thank you! On my Discord server - we meet every other Tues from 7:00pm CST/CDT to 9:30pm. Right now, we have 3 2nd level characters and some that are close, they're finally getting into areas with loot!
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